Ambiguous Endeavours

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This dissertation examines how melodrama, defined as a complex, distinctly modern and transnational mode of storytelling, has influenced the area of Polish Holocaust representation since the late 1970s till the present. Within a methodological frame that seeks to combine textual and contextual analysis, the study poses a set of questions that can be asked of the melodramatic mode’s narrative structures and stylistic devices, their signifying and functionality, in literature and film. Other key issues considered include the melodramatic narratives’ ability to evolve and adapt during the cultural transformation of late-communism (the 1970s and 1980s) and post-communism (after 1989), and the circumstances accompanying melodrama’s rise to prominence within this particular field. I argue that the increased visibility and popularity of melodramatic narratives must be seen in relation to the long-standing associations between Polish Holocaust representation and forms of expression linked to high modernism and the avant-garde, but also as indicative of fundamental changes in post-communist culture.